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Vugar Khalilov: â€œBBC is continuing to significantly damage my personal and business reputationâ€

07 December 2010 14:40 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Lachin Sultanova - APA. â€œI have sent a letter to Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General, to inform him of my grave disappointment at the libellous accusations levelled against me on 14th and 15th April by the BBC Kyrgyz Serviceâ€, said Vugar Khalilov, CEO, Flexy Communications. He told APA that he also brought his attention to a statement that was published on the website of the Fergana.ru news agency and was presented as a statement of the BBC`s press office. â€œThis statement in fact stands by the libellous information that BBCâ€™s Kyrgyz Service disseminated in April about me.
In this way, it looks like the BBC is continuing to significantly damage my personal and business reputation and the reputation of my company, Flexi Communications.
The letter has also been sent to Foreign Secretary William Hague, to the chairman of the BBC Trust Sir Michael Lyons, Ofcomâ€™s chairman Ed Richards, and David Moran, the UK Ambassador to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan .
Regarding statement by the BBCâ€™s press office, I feel I must say that their statement seems, worryingly, to underestimate the gravity of this issue. For some reason the essence of the problem I’ve raised was put aside, but rumours, gossips and obvious lie were presented as truth and accurate information.
The core of the problem is that BBC`s Kyrgyz Service disseminated libellous allegations about me and my company.
In light of the present social-political situation in Kyrgyzstan, that untrue information put my life in real danger, and caused psychological harm to me. It damaged my personal and business reputation and the reputation of my company, caused massive financial loss to me and my business, and lost me future business opportunities. It is very difficult to start again with clients who naturally left me when I was imprisoned and unable to run my company.
And now, when Iâ€™m telling my personal story to the media, where itâ€™s me who is the first and reliable source of information, it seems the BBC, having issued the statement, is intervening and attempting to undermine my reputation again by questioning the trustworthiness of my story. Everything I have been telling based on real facts.
I would add that the reaction of the BBC which has been published on Fergana.ru website about me only serves to aggravate my situation, and from my point of view may contain some elements of intimidationâ€, said Khalilov in his letter.